Escapist
by jojogirl
Summary: She knows that to him it must look as if she’s keeping still. As if there’s hope that something can keep Kate Austen from moving, from fading, from running. Jate 2parter.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note**: This is a short little fic I that popped into my head. It's a rewriting/filler of a scene you might know very well from season 1.

Blame the canon whore in me. Thanks to Laura for beta-ing!

**Escapist**

She can't keep still. She's never been able to.

She knows that for an outsider, looking at her standing at the shore like that, face turned towards the open sea, eyes closed, it must seem as if she is deeply rooted on the beach, firmly planted in place.

She is far from it.

"Well this is a first."

When she hears his voice, it's both gentle and teasing at the same time. She turns her head towards him and immediately senses it's _one of those days_. Where the banter and flirting between them is so light hearted and easy that it makes her heart lurch in this painful way. It is days like these that almost let her forget that there's a gulf between them she can't even fathom to bridge. Almost forget, but not quite.

Yet that can't stop the corners of her mouth from twisting upward into a wide, irrational smile, so it's definitely _one of those days_.

She wonders if it feels the same for him.

He walks a little closer until the water is rolling up to his muddy boots.

"You standing still, middle of the day, doing nothing. _Amazing_."

There's something utterly boyish about the way he flails his left arm to accompany his words; something charming about that tiny hint of awkwardness when he hooks the thumb of his right hand into the pocket of his blue jeans. As if he's trying to be casual and suave and not succeeding all that much because he's Jack and it's all never ending tension between them.

He cocks his head and squints because the light is too bright and also because he's mocking her, just a little.

He's mocking her but it is kind and it is endearing. It's Jack.

"I'm doing something." Her words have this boldness about them and she can't keep it out of her voice. Always the defiant, challenging tone. This time, it's a challenge for banter.

"Yeah?"

The word chuckles out of his throat, deep and hearty and earnest and it stretches an echo that vibrates deep inside her, bringing a smile over her face.

"What's that?"

He steps closer, towering a few good inches above her, but it's not intimidating. Not really, anyway. More like a sturdy, solid presence.

She yearns to hear him laugh again.

"I'm sinking." She curls her toes into the wet, clumpy sand, trying to anchor herself in this moment.

He looks down and watches the water run across her feet, taking the sand with it. The rosy, wet skin looks so _alive_ against the bleakness of the sand; she's like a tree digging her roots into the ground.

He shakes his head. The thought is absurd. Kate doesn't do roots and digging in. And yet, it is a comforting one.

Her simple explanation earns her a timid smile so she elaborates.

"Water goes out, takes the sand with it and…you sink."

He nods in his usual way, as if he understands her. It consoles her in a way, even if he's not.  
But that's Jack, too. Always trying.

"I used to do it with my mom when I was a kid."

Something unusual swings in her voice, wavering slightly. _How about a little honesty, Jack?_

He doesn't know how he knows but he knows; she's not lying this time. She looks at him and for a second it's just Kate. Then she blinks and turns away and the moment is gone.

Suddenly, she looks a lot smaller and a lot younger.

And suddenly, Jack really _understands_.

"Ah, new plan. You're gonna sink your way right off the island."

He's teasing her again, even more gently this time. She knows that it's his way of offering her a hand she'd otherwise decline.

But it's kinda unsettling how right he is without realizing it.

She knows that to him it must look as if she's keeping still. As if there's hope that something can keep Kate Austen from moving, from fading, from running.

But there's not.

Because she's sinking and that means she's not standing still.

She doesn't do standing still.

She can't.

When she was younger she wished she could sink away from her life. Sink right into the ground, bury herself in its steadiness. Away from the pettiness, the dullness and the late night arguments. Sink away from those nights she could feel his breath down her neck. Too close and warm and ripe of alcohol, it made her want to tear her skin off.

Now she is a thousand miles away from that life but she still wishes she could sink away, be somewhere else.

When she looks up to him again, he's staring out at sea. His face is a beautiful one, with straight, graceful features. It's the face of a man with lines and flaws and yet it's so perfect in its way that it hurts to look at him. Her fingertips ache to touch his cheek, to feel the prickle of his not so clean shaven skin against her own. With Jack, she senses, there might not be a _too close_ and _too warm_.

It's quite pathetic actually, but as she's watching his face, she finds herself wishing things would be different.

She finds herself wishing she could _sink right into him instead_.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: This was written as an assignment to the Jate ficathon. Requirements were sinking, guava seeds and no Sawyer bashing. Here comes the second part, it's a little captivity angst.

Here comes part 2...

**II.**

Sometimes, she lets herself think about camp.

It has become her cop out. In her worst moments, when she feels like the walls are closing in on her, when the feeling in her throat grows and grows until she's going to choke, she thinks about it, lets her mind _go back_.

She doesn't do it too often.  
She's afraid if she does, it's going to lose its power to make her feel better. That, and she's afraid of thinking too much.

Kate is not a stranger to this game. In fact, ever since she was little, her mind has been an expert at pretending and making her believe that somewhere, there's a better place and things aren't as bad as they seem. She used to do it with Wayne; she'd just imagine she was far, far away, tell herself it wasn't happening to her. And it had worked.  
It was kinda like dreaming with eyes open.

After a few days in captivity, Kate knows she hasn't lost her ability.

Sometimes, during a particularly long session of question and answer with the man she knows as Henry Gale, she uses it.  
She also uses it in the nights where sleep becomes a weird, foreign concept completely out of the realm of possibility.  
It's kinda like that fairytale about the little girl that uses her matches to keep her warm because she has nothing else. It's not much, but it helps her to make it through, so Kate thinks about camp.  
Not about the people, that is too painful. But sometimes, for a short while, she lets herself think about it, like for example, the beach.  
Sometimes, at night, when the thick dark of her cell fills her nostrils and then her lungs and crawls under her skin, she thinks about how on the beach, the sky above her was an endless, velvety blanket. It helps her to breathe.  
She thinks about how it seemed that with the sky above, the space for her thoughts and dreams was wide and open. As if she could think and think and the thoughts could fly and expand and never come back.  
Here, her thoughts bounce back from the bleak walls and the low concrete ceiling like an echo; they dance around the cell and in her head, they swarm around and float about and lull her in, chanting a drowsy nightsong.  
And when sleep comes, it comes in the form of nauseous abandon and in her dreams she can hear the roaring and the crashing of the waves, the endless music of the tide washing over her soothingly. But as soon as she awakes and opens her eyes there is nothing but the walls to hold her upright.  
It is then that the realization that _he_ is not there hits particularly hard.

Sometimes, she thinks of Sawyer. It's not her usual escapist fantasy but she thinks of him and their banter so full of sloppy innuendo and she _misses it so much_ it seems like a lifetime away. The memory almost manages to force the sad curve of her mouth into a smile. She thinks so hard she can _almost hear him_. The slur of his voice is as comforting as the sound of the waves.  
And then she wonders if he's alright and she hopes he is. She worries about Sawyer but that's somehow ok. It's normal.

She cannot worry about _him_. _He's ok he's ok he's ok_ she repeats in her head. It has become a mantra.  
He _has_ to be.

It's hard to think of Sawyer. It's hard and it hurts but she can't help it and it's better than to think of _him_.

Sometimes, to calm her down, she thinks about the quiet solitude of Sun's garden.  
She pushes out the thoughts of Sun but she thinks of the garden and it soothes her somehow. She thinks about how in the afternoon, thin rays of light broke through the tree canopy and basked the place in a misleadingly peaceful, golden glaze. She thinks about how it felt to have the black soil running though her hands, the comfort of digging her fingers into the sticky lumps. She thinks about how satisfying it had been to do something worthwhile with her hands, there in the warm sun. She thinks so hard she can _almost feel its warmth_.  
Here, all she can do is wait and it eats at her. The emptiness has found old, worn traces to run in Kate thought she'd mended a long time ago.

The place she is in smells sickly of desperation and she wonders if, given she sat still long enough, she'd be able to watch the paint unfurl itself from the wall.  
She probably would be.  
When the thought becomes unbearable and it's as if she'd die if it didn't stop _right now_, she thinks of something that means home to her.  
She allows herself to remember something definite and particular, like the smell of the garden. She imagines its heavy sent of ripe fruit and moist soil. She thinks so hard _she can smell it_.

Kate lets the thoughts in for a moment and it has to be enough. That's as far as she's gonna let herself go.  
She knows she is teetering dangerously on the edge: one thought too much and she'd be lost.  
She knows she cannot just give into it because if she did, she'd think of the soft, weighty fruit in her hand. She'd think of her fingers tearing into its yielding flesh, its juice running down her skin. She'd think of her hands working the ground and pressing seeds into little holes her fingers have dug. And then she'd be halfway to thinking about those little back grains in _his_ large hands and the touch of _his_ strong, lean fingers as _he_ let the guava seeds fall into her open palm.  
And then, she'd be thinking about Jack and she _cannot think about Jack_.

Once she'd think about Jack, she'd be lost.  
As a consequence, it would be impossible to return to reality, to this room.

Kate has to stay afloat to survive this, so she can't think about Jack.

She can't because she knows that in this place, it'd be all too easy to _sink right into him._


End file.
